Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1887-04-15
THE TABERNACLE SERMON.
DR.. TALMAGE'S EASTER THEMEs"THE
OVERTHROW OF THE MONSTER"

Up in Victory-The Soul Does Not Wait
for Funeral Obsequies or Obituaries,
but Goes Right to Heaven.
BBooKLYN, April 10-To-day being Easter
Sunday the tabernacle was profusely de-
corated with flowers. The pulpit, the pillars,
and the galleries were one great garden
of bloom. Professor Browne, the organist.
and Professor Ali, the cornetist, rendered
selections from Handel, Haydn and Bee
thoven, appropriate to the day celebrated.
The subject of DR.. Talmage's discourse was
"The Overthrow of the Monster" and his
text, Isaiah, XIV, S: "He will swallow up
death in victory" DR.. Talmage said:
About 1858 Easter mornings have awakened
the earth. In France for three centuries the
almanacs made the year begin at Easter,
until Charles TX made the year begin at
Jan. l. In the tower of London there is a
royal pay roll of Edward 1, on which there is
an entry of eighteen pence for 400 colored
and pictured Easter eggs, with which the
people sported In Russia slaves were fed
and aims were distributed ON Easter. Ecclesi-
astical councils met at Pontus, at Gaul at
Rome, at Achaia. to decide the particular day,
and after controversy, more animated than
gracious, decided it, and now through all
Christendom, in some way the first Sunday
after the full moon which happens upon or
next after March 81 is filed with Easter
rejoicing.
The royal court OF tie Sabbaths Is made up
of fifty-two. Fifty-one are princes in the
royal household, but Easter is queen. She
wears richer diadem and sways more Jew
eled scepter, and in her smile nations are "a
dated. Unusually welcome this year because
of the harsh winter and the late spring, she
seems to step out of the snow bank rather
than the conservatory, come out of the north
instead of the south, out of the Arctic rather
than the tropics, dismounting from the icy
equinox; but welcome this queenly day,
holding high up in her right hand the
wrenched off bolt of Christ's sepulcher and
holding high up in her left hand the key to
all the cemeteries in Christendom.
1t is an exciting thing to see an army routed
and flying. They run each other down. They
scatter everything valuable in the track. I'm
wheeled artillery, hoof of horse on breast
of wounded and dying man. You have read
of the French failing back from Sedan, or
Napoleon's track of 9O,O 900 corpses in the snow
banks of Russia, OF Of the retreat of our own
army from Manassas, or of the five kings
tumbling over the rocks of Bethoran with
CHes,I dIuleS, WLll0 uue HILL SGOrInS OF heaven
and the swords of Joshua's host struck them
with their fury. In my text is worse dis
comfture. 1t seems that black giant pro-
posed to conquer the earth. He gathered for
his host all the aches and pains and malarias
and cancers and distempers and epidemics of
the ages. He marched them down, drilling
them in the northeast wind and amid the slush
of tempests. He threw up barricades of
ora 10 font Of al
house. Some of the troops marched with
slow tread commanded by consumptions,
some in double quick, commanded by pneu-
monias. Some he took by long besiegement
of evil habit, and some by one stroke of the
battleax of casualty. With bony hand he
pounded at the door of hospitals and sick
rooms and won all the victories in all the
great battlefields of all the five continents.
Forward march, the conqueror of conquerors,
and all the generals and commanders in chief,
and all presidents and kings and sultans and
cars drop under the feet of his war charger.
But one Christmas night his antagonist was
born. AS most of the plaques and sicknesses
and despotisms come out of the east, it was
appropriate that the new conqueror should
come out of the same quarter. Power is
given him to awaken all the fallen of all the
centuries and of all lands, and marshal them
against the black giant Fields have already
been won, but the last day of the worlds ex-
istence will see the decisive BATTLE When
Christ shall lead forth his two brigades, the
brigade OF the risen dead and the brigade of
the celestial host, the black giant will fall
back, and the brigade from the riven sep,dl-
cheers will take him from beneath and the
brigade of descending immortals wiki tahe
him from above, and death shall lie swal-
lowed up in victory.
The old braggart that Threatened the con-
quest and demolition of the planet has lost his
throne has lost his scepter, hes lost his palace,
has lost his prestige and the one word writ
ten over all the gates of mausoleum and
catacomb and metropolis, on cenotaph and
sarcophagus, on the Lonely khan of the Arctic
explorer, and on the catafalque of great
cathedral, written in capitals of azalea and
Gala lily written in musical cadence, written
in doxology Of great assemblages, written on
the sculptrared door of the family vault, is
"victory." Coronal word, embannered word,
apocaly ptic word, chief word of the trium-
phal arch under which conquerors return.
Victory! Word shouted at Culloden
end Balaklava and Blenheim, at Me-
giddo and Solferino, at Marathon, where
the Athenians drove back the Modes; at
IOlCUlGfS, where OudlleS NdTL6l DEOk6 UQ0
ranks of the Saracens; at Salamis, where
Themistocles inthe great sea fight COMPOUNDED
the Persians, and at the door of the eastern
cavern of chiselled rock. where Christ came
out through a recess and throttled the king
of terrors, and put him back in the niche
from which the celestial conqueror had just
emerged Aha! when the jaws of the east
ern mausoleum took down the black giant
"death was swallowed up in victory" Ipro-
claim the abolition of death.
The old antagonist is driven back into
mythology with all the lore about Stygian
ferry and Charon with oar and boat. Mel
rose Abbey and Kenilworth castle are no
more in ruins than is the sepulcher. We
shall have no more to do with death than we
have with the cloalroom at a governors or
presidents levee We stop at suck cloakroom
| and leave in charge of a servant our overcoat,
our overshoes, our outward apparel, that we
may not be impeded in the brilliant round of